The Rabid Dog and a Hypothetical Question

[joe1776]

I don't see it as luck, rather choice.

How about luck AND choice? We were lucky not to be born and raised to be a dangerous human being. Hitler had a choice, and so would we, but it would be arrogant of us to simply assume that, in his shoes, we wouldn't have done what he did. We just don't know.

 

[JustWondering]

You see a rabid dog standing in the road. You're handed a hunting rifle. You take aim and kill it. You don't take pride in the killing. You did it with regret. It was just something you had to do.

You didn't do it because the dog's life had no value for you but because it represented a greater danger to other lives. You didn't regard the dog as evil. You saw it as sick.

You didn't hate the dog. If you hated anything, it was ignorance because we don't know how to cure rabies.

Now, a hypothetical: The year is 1940 and you are in Germany. You have a rifle and the perfect opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler, you know what you now know about the extent of his crimes.

How does the hypothetical for you differ from the rabid dog killing?

If you believe it's always wrong to kill, please tell us why you wouldn't take the shot.

If you would kill him with hate because you think he's evil and not sick, please explain why.

Are you testing us to see if we're replicants?

 

[joe1776]

Are you testing us to see if we're replicants?

Leon, is that you?

 

[Eliab ben Benjamin]

Sedate and cage both... no need to terminate.

 

[Sahm Kohm]

You see a rabid dog standing in the road. You're handed a hunting rifle. You take aim and kill it. You don't take pride in the killing. You did it with regret. It was just something you had to do.

You didn't do it because the dog's life had no value for you but because it represented a greater danger to other lives. You didn't regard the dog as evil. You saw it as sick.

You didn't hate the dog. If you hated anything, it was ignorance because we don't know how to cure rabies.

Now, a hypothetical: The year is 1940 and you are in Germany. You have a rifle and the perfect opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler, you know what you now know about the extent of his crimes.

How does the hypothetical for you differ from the rabid dog killing?

If you believe it's always wrong to kill, please tell us why you wouldn't take the shot.

If you would kill him with hate because you think he's evil and not sick, please explain why.

I would not kill him for 3 reasons
1) My parents met as a result of WW2, therefore if I kill him my parents never meet and resulting from that causality I might cease to exist.
2) There were many technical advances from that war, in medicine, in technology and in science. Would you be able to run this board without the computer being invented?
Colossus, the first electronic programmable computer was developed to decode enigma and other German codes.
3) Hitler was insane and as a result did not fight the war safely, had he died one of his general's or maybe Himmler or Goerring would have stepped into his shoes and not attacked Russia or would have held the Japanese back from Pearl Harbour until after Britain was done and the war might have ended very differently, had the Germans restricted their fighting to one front only. Finish Britain, leave the colonies to Japan, then gather strength move on Russia but do it properly, this time, then go for Africa and before you know it America is on its own fighting on three fronts, maybe four depending on how Mexico goes.
I think that would maybe give a very unwelcome result.

So no I would not kill him.

 

[joe1776]

So no I would not kill him.

Your vote evens the score at 4-4. I thought it would be a lop-sided vote to kill him. I'd take the shot. I couldn't pass up the chance to save all those lives. It's unlikely the Germans would put another madman in charge.

 

[Akivah]

As I explained earlier, my hypothetical was set up to see if others agreed with me that killing Hitler was virtually the same moral problem as that of killing the rabid dog. A few posters agreed, a few did not.

If that was your true point, then your hypothetical distracted from your real point.

Killing a human has greater considerations and consequences than killing an animal.

 

[Akivah]

Your vote evens the score at 4-4. I thought it would be a lop-sided vote to kill him. I'd take the shot. I couldn't pass up the chance to save all those lives. It's unlikely the Germans would put another madman in charge.

The Germans of that time had been indoctrinated that they were a superior human race and that every Jew in the world must be killed. I have no doubt that some other German would have picked up the slack and possibly be more competent in warfare than Hitler.

 

[joe1776]

If that was your true point, then your hypothetical distracted from your real point.

Killing a human has greater considerations and consequences than killing an animal.

When I said "virtually the same," I misled you. Specifically, they are the same to me in that both acts were obligations, both should be done with regret, and like the rabid dog, I would consider Hitler sick not evil.

 

[joe1776]

The Germans of that time had been indoctrinated that they were a superior human race and that every Jew in the world must be killed. I have no doubt that some other German would have picked up the slack and possibly be more competent in warfare than Hitler.

Not very likely. Hitler's personality was unique. It sounds like you're creating a stereotypical German of that day in Hitler's image.

 

[Akivah]

Not very likely. Hitler's personality was unique. It sounds like you're creating a stereotypical German of that day in Hitler's image.

It sounds like you're ignoring the reality of that time. Hitler did not function in a vacuum. He had millions of supporters with thousands of employees that carried out his orders. Many Germans agreed with Hitler's actions. The Holocaust was not the only time that Jews were murdered in Germany.

 

[Sahm Kohm]

Your vote evens the score at 4-4. I thought it would be a lop-sided vote to kill him. I'd take the shot. I couldn't pass up the chance to save all those lives. It's unlikely the Germans would put another madman in charge.

My proble is that they would not put a madman in charge but would put a sane person in charge. Hitler insisted on running the war himself, he set his general's against each other. Think for a second on what might have happened if the next person in charge did not make Hitler's errors.
Hitler changed tactics in the Battle of Britain, he stopped bombing airfields and the radar chain and started going for the cities, had he continued to bond the airfields he would have paralysed the RAF.
Hitler got bored with going after Britain so he opened a second front against Russia, this split his forces. Allowing Britain to function as an advance base/stepping off point for the invasion of Europe and the delivery of supplies to Russia. Imagine America trying to launch an invasion from America instead of from Brkitain - impossible.
Think of the difference in Operation Barbarossa if , say Rommel had been there instead of tied up in North Africa with his Afrika Korps veterans.
Hitler stopped that from happening, be grateful to him.

 

[joe1776]

My proble is that they would not put a madman in charge but would put a sane person in charge..

So, your concern would be that a sane person would take over bent on world domination and the extermination of all Jews?